Category Archives: Halloween Decorations

This is a silly idea I’ve had for years…to somehow create a back story for the giant, scary candy corn in the yard. Of course, per classic horror movies/comic books, the basic explanation for any mutant anything is some kind of toxic spill. So…

The original candy corn gang plus the still-mutating mutant, but much smaller, candy corn.

A daytime view of the goo…with the bag and candy corn stuck in the toxic spill.

Mutant candy corn on the rise.

So, I rigged up a black light to shine down on this mess, and some LED lights inside of the bucket. The bucket glows on and off, while the toxic spill is perpetually lit…at least at night.

Years ago, I scribbled out a drawing of a weird little ghost with vampire fangs and a red baseball cap (I was using a red pencil, because that’s what was there). Red caps are now essentially poison (you can’t spell hatred without ‘red hat’). I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do with that drawing, but this year I decided it would be a thing. So I made six vampire ghosts that are now hanging out on the fence by the road. As a bonus, I covered all of them with reflective beads, in the hopes that cars coming around the bend would be treated to some sparkly-shiny ghosts. Enjoy!

Based on the original, but not quite the same.

Sort of a sister to the original, who is maybe poking fun at that single fang.

The prototype ghost…in that it was the first one I made, sans baseball cap, obviously.

Ghost parade in front of the house.

The other side of the driveway, and plenty of other decorations.

An attempt to show what the ghosts look like in the darkness with light reflecting off them.

Initially, this was going to be one of multiple flying eyeballs, with varying colors (and level of eye irritation), but other projects became a priority…maybe next year.

Like with almost all my decorations, this is plywood and paint…but it also has tiny reflective glass beads on all the white parts, and even tinier reflective glass beads on the orange ‘bones’ of the wings. Tried to get a nighttime picture that would show what it looks like in the dark when light hits it, but y’know, nighttime photography with an old iPhone is not my forte’. You get the idea…maybe.

This year’s addition to the Halloween silliness in my front yard is the Pink Demon.

4′ x 8′ of bright pink evil

It was inspired, as are many of the decorations, by one of my daughter’s old drawings.

I’ve got other things in the works, but just didn’t have the time to make them happen in full–in part, due to spending a good portion of my planning time trying to figure out a good way to put a large decoration on the roof, and then deciding the potential for damage–to the roof, to anything the decoration might fall on if it wasn’t secured properly, to my physical being as I try to get it up on the roof, etc.–was just too great. Then, I spent far too long trying to figure out how to “backlight” one of last-year’s monsters–a project that was also scrapped due to the unruly nature of trying to attach lights to the back of a beast with ten, gangly arms.

But, hey–I’ll just be happy with the new demon, and maybe spend a little time over the course of the year working on things, so there’s not a big rush to get things done next October. Yeah, right.

Back when my daughter was, I think, five years old (maybe six), my wife put together this black, construction-paper house (and drew the flower on it, perhaps thinking my daughter would make a ‘cute’ haunted house). And, while I find it completely adorable, my daughter’s version of a haunted house did her horror-fan dad proud.

The witch that inspired one of last year’s decorations, along with a black cat, jack-o’-lantern, and sarcophagus.

As a teen, the kid didn’t want me putting the haunted house out on display year after year, but grudgingly allowed it, so long as it went back in storage with the other Halloween decorations as soon as November hit. Then, one year while getting out the Halloween decorations, I couldn’t find the house. I feared that the kid had tossed it, in the same way she had gotten rid of other things she deemed embarrassing during her teen years.

The flowers, along with the mummy emerging from the sarcophagus, a werewolf, vampire, and a bunch of vicious little roof monsters.

As it turns out, the absence of the haunted house was merely due to the complete mess that is my workshop. It had somehow gotten knocked to the floor and shoved up under a storage shelf, plywood blocking the house from view. I went through two Halloweens, not realizing that it wasn’t lost forever, only misplaced.

Another view of the witch, cat, and jack-o’-lantern, but with a spider, a version of Frankenstein’s monster peaking out the door, and what I’m assuming is some kind of murdering fiend.

When I finally found it, I was overjoyed. I ran into the house and showed my wife, telling her how I thought it had been lost forever, but it was just lost for a very long time. I’m not sure she understood how excited I was, because “overjoyed” for me is usually just mildly obnoxious–well, mildly in my book at least. It was a little beat up, as might be obvious from the photos, but in much better shape than it might have been, given the recklessness with which I had treated it.

The witch that the house built–or at least inspired.

I got my daughter, emerging from the height of teenage embarrassment at the time, to agree to let me keep the haunted house permanently displayed on the mantle, just to the right of the TV, so, well, it’s at least in my peripheral vision for a while each day. And so I don’t have to worry about it getting lost in my poorly-organized workshop.

We’re breaking records for October rain here in this part of the world–as well as having just generally rotten weather–so much so that I kept blowing off putting up the decorations. I still haven’t gotten the lights set out–the big LED lamps that illuminate the whole Halloween display. I’ll get to that as soon as I’m done posting this…and well before I dry out from having just gone out to hang the new decorations. (Yep, taking it down to the wire, despite Halloween and tricks and treats falling on a school night plagued by terrible weather).

Both of the new pieces are based on drawings the kid did many years ago, when she was about five. Of course, there are modifications. I’d post images of the source material, but I didn’t ask her permission for that. Maybe later.

What is it?!? Isn’t it obvious?

So, the ten-armed creature here (which was a twelve-armed creature in its original form) is a random monster from the days when the kid would sit around drawing picture after picture, or very involved pictures with numerous characters. So far as I know, it has no name, and isn’t any particular kind of beast. I always envisioned it as floating about, or perhaps ‘swimming’ through the air. At any rate, it was made to hang from our plum tree. It’s about six-and-a-half feet tall. And, in case you’re wondering, yes, cutting something like that out of a single piece of 4′ x 8′ plywood is rather time-consuming.

With an actual, aged broom…y’know, for realism!

The witch here was taken from my favorite material object in the entire world…a construction paper haunted house that the kid made all those years ago, with numerous drawings of monsters glued to the outside. Her witch was standing, not flying on a broom. And I added the gym socks. But I think I retained the spirit of the original pretty well.

The idea for the monster caterpillar came from one of the kid’s drawings. I went looking for it, but am not sure where it went. Usually, the drawings that are used for Halloween decorations end up tacked on the garage wall somewhere or other, but it’s not there. Nor is it in my other file of potential Halloween decorations.

As usual, the original version was done rather last minute, so the overall look was a bit rushed. It was also made out of a partially-used piece of plywood, accounting for some of the odd shapes. At the time I first made it, I posted a picture of it online, leading a co-worker to ask, “What is it?” That interaction led me to be deeply concerned with higher education in the U.S.A. If a person with an advanced degree cannot readily identify giant, house-eating caterpillars, then we are truly doomed. But I digress.

The original, rushed version, with our vicious guard dog looking on.

The caterpillar needed some fresh paint, so I made it look a bit more like I originally wanted.

A lot of the tombstones were looking pretty shabby. Also, I still had some store-bought, styrofoam ones that I managed to patch up and keep using over the years. So, I decided it was time to get the graveyard in order. The styrofoam ones are finally gone, replaced with tombstones cut from a single, heavy board. There’s one other new/replacement tombstone cut from the seat of a broken down dining room chair. The rest–taken from a variety of different wood sources over the years–were touched up with primer, then “Make it Stone” paint, then spray sealer.

The graveyard–along with Murder Teddy and the purple alligator monster that lives downstairs.

The lettering is all done freehand, in a variety of styles, partially depending on how the paint, paintbrushes, and the surface is behaving, but mostly just based on me winging it and hoping I don’t screw anything up too much. The tombstones, per tradition, all involve the names of various fictional characters from books, comic books, and song. The only one not visible in the picture (blocked by a zombie) is Caddy Compson.

But first, all of the tombstones and zombies got fitted with hinges or brackets (if they didn’t already have them) paired with a single metal rod to serve as a stake for holding them in place, then got their backs “blacked out” with a coat of primer and a layer or two of black paint.

From the back–all blacked out and much less sloppy–note, I am talking about the tombstones and zombies, not the deplorable state of my landscaping.

The whole process was rather involved, took several steps, and involved a lot of delightfully toxic fumes. I really should work on the tombstones in the summer, when I can more reliably use spray paint and sealer outside. I did all the spraying in our “workshop”–an added-on room where the previous owner used to work on stained glass–but which has no windows. There’s a definite trade-off between leaving the door open to air it out, and closing the door so that all the cold, wet air doesn’t prevent the paint from curing in a reasonable period of time.

At any rate, I went to all that work, because previously the backs of all the pieces had a wide range of different “looks”–from bare plywood, to various colors, words, and images, from reclaimed wood. I don’t have a picture of the backs when they were in the pre-blackened state. I never thought to take one. Still, it always bothered me that when I opened the door for trick-or-treaters, and when they were walking away, we would see a whole lot of mess on the back of the tombstones, and a weird array of sticks and stakes, and wire and string. Now, it’s all more uniform, and masked much better. Fascinating, I know.

I did some minor updates to the evil candy corn gang as well. Somewhat hard to make out in the pictures, perhaps. But they are all seeing red now.

Overall, I had to “update” them by repainting and sealing all of them. Although they were all cut from the same sheet of plywood years ago, the ringleader is starting to warp and crack. Hopefully, he holds up so I don’t have to completely re-create him next year.

At any rate, the idea for these came from the kid–who, after seeing a “cute” candy corn decoration in a garden center, said that candy corn should not be all smiley and happy, but should appear as it is–evil.

Done.

With their original look.

I have been meaning, for years, to make a lot more of these guys, of varying sizes, and then throw some actual candy corn on the ground around them, as if some magic spell has caused them to grow, morph, and attack. One day, maybe.

I’ve been rather quiet on the blogging front lately. That’s because it’s October. Priorities shift.

See, I’m one of those weirdos who makes a mess of the house (outside mostly) for Halloween. And I always push it up to the last minute.

So, as I get down to the house-messing-up wire, I’m also going to make at least a feeble attempt at catching up on blogging by putting up posts/photos of some of the new decorations/upgrades.

For years, the big goal has been to get rid of all the store-bought stuff, and have all-original decorations, with a few beloved exceptions. Plywood and paint is the order.

Also, this year being the first October in over seven years when I wasn’t working at least two jobs and/or running a business out of my house, I had (what I thought was enough) extra time to update old things that I did on the fly in years past, and which did not turn out exactly the way I intended.

The original version of the unofficially titled ‘monster house door’ used what scrap wood I had, leading to some teeth that weren’t quite as scary as I wanted, but still pretty cool.

The old, little teeth, with the house bathed in green light.

Here is the updated version, with bigger, scarier teeth, and even some teeth for the lower, right door. Also, the teeth are now coated in reflective glass beads now, although I’m not sure whether that is really accomplishing anything. I might be doing an update next year with a different grade of reflective beads.

The new teeth, with the photo taken early in the morning, just because.